


A banner color

by tselinoyarsk (tselina)



Series: Upon this rocky shore [apocrypha] [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Implied Child Abuse, Implied D/s, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 05:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12928299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tselina/pseuds/tselinoyarsk
Summary: "Rid the worlds of the one thing tying you to Asgard, to that old lie of a life you have. Rid the worlds of me."An alternate scene on the Bifrost at the end of the first movie.





	A banner color

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings : Violence. Implication of possible sexual abuse. **
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> **PLEASE do not read if Thor/Loki is a squick for you.**
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> I always saw Loki's position as a kind of whipping boy for Thor; a spoil of war that did well for himself, instead, and was raised to the position of a son. Also that he feeds on chaos and disorder and the only real thing kind of stemming that tide from overcoming any of his senses was Thor. But only that could last so long.
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> Originally written before Thor: Ragnarok came out.

"You've made your choice," Loki hissed. "So end it, brother. End it now. Rid the worlds of the one thing tying you to Asgard, to that old lie of a life you have. Rid the worlds of me."

Thor thought for a moment he would follow through with Loki's taunts, that he would strike him down. The sorrow on Loki's face was so supreme, so absolute, searing clean through his madness. It _was_ his madness: jealousy, sorrow. The blood dribbled down his chin, a flash of Thor's color on Loki's black-and-gold.

"Midgard was gifted to me since I was old enough to travel the Bifrost," Thor said, lowering his hammer. Loki's throat flexed; he made a high nose of anger as he saw Thor stand down. "It is not my _home_ , but it is a jewel of my keeping."

"A jewel." Loki scoffed, tossing his broken sceptre to the ground. It clattered louder than any thunderclap from Thor's palms, any battlefield shout he'd ever known. "A jewel. Once _I_ was your jewel, you know, Thor. Once _I_ was the one you swore to protect."

"I cannot protect you if you do not wish to be protected," Thor said, his temper threatening to break again. "You say to me you would rather I kill you. Is that not against that very oath I made?"

"You mince my words!"

"I learned that trade from _you!_ " Thor's boot heel cracked the bridge, and it trembled, as if unsure of his weight. "You say in one hand I should smite you, then snarl at me that I have failed in my promises to care for you. You are not _well_ , Loki."

"And do you think our -- _your_ people -- will call me back willingly?" Loki's voice pitched up at the end. He was losing his grip; Thor could see it. His eyes faded from their perfect blue-green to something dull and red, his skin masked in ashen blue, as if his whole body was littered in bruises. "You know that they all wished me _their_ jewel, their plaything, and perhaps you should have let it happen, Thor, perhaps I should have simply withered under their ill use, for all the good it's done them to let you have me for your brother--"

"I will not have you speak of that any further, Loki," Thor said, chillingly quiet, but in such tones that Loki's mouth drew to a line, his form fixing, an Asgardian in full once more.

"You ruined me," Loki, strangling on his chosen weapon, words that could tempt and twist but were suffocating him now. "You ruined me. I belong _nowhere_."

"You belong to _me_.” The cracked Bifrost crackled beneath Thor's feet as he stepped forward. "Loki, you ask me to choose. But can you not be beside me? Is that not the covenant we made as children? As boys? As men?"

Loki said nothing.

"You are my treasure," Thor said. He raised a hand to touch Loki's tear-striped cheek. "You are beloved to me. Come. I will make my own words work magic. I will--"

Loki was insubstantial. He was simply not there. A trick, and his favorite one. Thor's temper surged at last, and he whirled around to where Loki's sceptre was pointed at his chest in a grand sweep of his magic. Thor bellowed his rage as Mjolnir struck the daggers of Loki's frost before it could reach him. He used the backwards force to crack Loki across his breastplate, and it hit solidly. Loki tumbled, his broken crown and armor scattering behind him as shrapnel from an alchemist's bomb.

Thor's resolve wavered to see his brother's white cheek so cruelly bruised. Loki coughed, blood from his lips and a bitten tongue splattered over the Bifrost's pulsing light, blotting the color like spilled ink.

"Oh, yes," Loki crooned, half in mock arousal and in the same measure, defeat, "yes, my Lord, show your _treasure_ how much he means to you--"

Thor's hand went through Loki's hair and he yanked his head up and back, and Loki looked at him with bright helplessness, relief washing over his features to be held still. His immediate and sweet submission was familiar, and Thor accepted it, the gate opened between them as it had been welded shut moments before. Old warmth fell over them both, a moment of peace. Loki stopped his squirming, his little pained noises, and soon the great bruising and breaking on his cheek faded as Thor's touch healed him.

"My love," Thor said, letting the hammer drop from his free hand, knowing at least now Loki could not trick him like this. He touched the slim man's neck, trailing past the ridges of his throat, to pull his amulet of protection that Loki wore from under his robes. "My love, I will hide you in Midgard again. You will be safe there. Your madness will ebb, you will --”

There was a thunderous noise, and not from Thor's power. Some great weapon struck Loki from Thor's grip, their warmth now cruelly severed and replaced with the cold bluster of their father's presence.

"Oh, Thor. I see at last the boy's true colors, and yours," Odin said. Weary, but the king's single eye was sharp, resting on Loki's curled form. He'd used the butt of Gungnir to strike Loki, a small mercy, but still one that had him curled near the edge of the Bifrost, retching in pain. "That whore has made you weak, my son."

"He is no whore," Thor said, simmering now with calm fury, clouds covering the golden kingdom beyond like a death-shroud.

"You have lain with him all this time, that I know, and that is your due, as a true Prince of Asgard," Odin said. 

"Aye, it is my due, for he was gifted to me," Thor sneered, "and I did what I pleased, and that was love him."

"That is the part that marks you weak!" Odin shouted. He cracked his spear to the ground, and now Thor was thrown back, head striking the bridge. Dizzily, Thor thought to call Mjolnir, but his father's boot stood upon its weight, and the weapon could not but tremble.

Odin pulled Loki up by the hair as Thor had, but there was no pleasure there on Loki's face, just vague animal panic, his eyes wide and bulging. They met Thor's, and Loki's parched mouth made words that Thor, still stunned, could not quickly parse.

"I will spare him," Odin said, gripping Loki by the throat now to raise him, a strange look of both sorrow and disappointment on his face as the man struggled, "because he was a good and obedient son for so long, and I fear you will not be bled of his poison so easily. But he _will_ be banished."

"No," Thor said. He raised his hand, now knowing what Loki had said to him in silence.

_It is yours._

The hammer, which Loki had tricked the dwarves to create for him, a weapon that would have him stand out amid battle. The hammer, which Loki had paid for in his blood. _It is yours_ , he'd said, to remind him. It was enough.

Mjolnir pulled itself from under Odin's boot, soaring towards Thor. The hammer sung down upon the Bifrost, Thor's cry of fury in harmony with the blast. Odin flung Loki away before he was knocked aside. Loki, barely conscious, could not stop himself from tumbling off the side of the bridge.

Thor surged forward in time to grasp Loki's arm, to keep him from falling into the void beyond. Loki jerked to awareness, but barely, his eyes dull red and searching Thor's face with blind fear before they focused on him, and turned back to their proper color.

"Let go," Loki asked, his voice steady, despite sure death below. "It isn't worth it. I will grow mad again. Best I leave you now."

"Stop it," Thor whispered, the strange sensation of tears burning in his eyes, coursing down his face. Beyond them, the thunderstorm at last broke, rain sheeting down on all of Asgard's glorious cities, its fields, its winding streets and golden tenements. "Stop wanting to die. I forbid you. I _command_ you. Have I commanded you before, truly? Heed me now, if you have ever loved me--"

He broke off in a single, aborted sob, and his healing tears struck Loki's face, little ripples of flushed skin under them, a contrast to Loki's now corpse-white flesh, the blue on his lips not from his alien heritage.

"You bid me not to die, my sweet Lord," Loki whispered, not a hint of callousness in his words, simple serenity. "That is enough."

He had always found ways from Thor's grip: in play, in arguments, in the great chase of pleasure. Now Loki twisted his arm with that expert ease, now he slipped from Thor's bruising fingers. Now Thor could only see Loki's calm expression, the fondness and sweet love crinkling his smile, the corners of his eyes; a last and loving glance, meant for Thor, to tell him the words he could not speak.

Thor, lips bloody from his ruined throat, let his thunder scream for him.

Lightning shattered the spires of the palace. Water flooded every street, swelled to overtake dams. Despair and fear touched the hearts of all. The storm was Thor's absolute grief and rage, and only until Odin banished the mourning son to Midgard did the torrent subside. Yet the cracks in Asgard's great structures remained after he was gone, the Bifrost unhealing, those scars testament to a love so deep, it remained forever from the Aesir's grasp.


End file.
